1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to separators for separating a liquid from a liquid/gas mixture. It can also be used when such a mixture contains particulates.
The need for such a separator arises in aircraft where air is taken from the exterior of the aircraft fusilage to cool electronics equipment within the fusilage. In wet conditions, such air can contain water and it is essential that all water is removed before the air reaches the electronic equipment. The air can also contain particulates such as dust and soot and it is equally important that they be removed.
2. Brief Review of the Prior Art
A previous proposal for separating water from air in such circumstances has been the provision of an inlet leading to a coalescer in the form of a vertically arranged mesh on which water droplets coalesce into larger drops which then fall to the periphery of the mesh for extraction. A pleated cylindrical filter medium is provided downstream of the coalescer to filter out solids. The outlet to the filter unit is for connection to electronics equipment to be cooled.
It has been found that such a separator does not work satisfactorily because the coalescer does not always remove sufficient of the water droplets, so that air passing to the filter unit is heavily laden with water droplets. The filter medium used in the filter is not of a size to remove such water droplets and so water can pass to the outlet, which is plainly undesirable.